oil ass nsumption. ocally and renders of US rests. Sarng misul tform r all it us prodred for ento petror, artificial H₂) producbiological, moom sunlight, f Enfor exas CO₂. As h d Bioenergy International No 82, 6-2015 5 INTERNATI NAL BIOENERGY INTERNATIONAL Holländargatan 17 SE-111 60 Stockholm, Sweden Tel: +46 8 441 70 80 E-mail: info@bioenergyinternational.com Twitter:BioenergyIntl www.bioenergyinternational.com PUBLISHER Kjell Andersson kjell.andersson@svebio.se EDITOR IN CHIEF Alan Sherrard alan.sherrard@bionergyinternational.com SALES, MARKETING & CO-EDITORS Dorota Natucka dorota.natucka@bioenergyinternational.com Jeanette Fogelmark jeanette.fogelmark@bioenergyinternational.com Xinyi Shen xinyi.shen@bioenergyinternational.com SUBSCRIPTION 7 issues 125 EUR. Order: info@bioenergyinternational.com PRINTING Exaktaprinting, Malmö, Sweden OWNER SBSAB/Svebio Holländargatan 17 SE-111 60 Stockholm, Sweden ABOUT BIOENERGY INTERNATIONAL Bioenergy International is produced in cooperation with the European Biomass Association, AEBIOM and published 7 times a year. COVER PHOTO Top on the new “Rauchgas” (flue gas) treatment unit installed at one of Austria’s oldest cement production plants, Kirschdorfer Zementverk. Founded in 1888 the company prides itself on taking a lead in reducing its environmental impact, willing to test new technologies and methods (photo courtesy Scheuch). No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in any form without the prior written consent of the publisher. Whilst every reasonable effort is made to check accuracy, all articles and information are published in good faith. Readers are advised to verify statements and facts direct with official sources before acting on them as the publisher cannot, under any circumstances, accept any responsibility. Opinions expressed should not be construed as being those of the publisher. SI units and ISO 4217 currency codes are used as a matter of preference. HIGH TIME TO COP ON, NOT COP OUT This issue comes out a month or so prior to the next annual Conference of Parties negotiations to be held in Paris, France, aka COP21. Expectations are running high in many quarters that the discussions in Paris will result in concrete measures and options to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigate climate change. The expectation is for a robust new international deal to be reached with the overarching aim of keeping global warming to within the 2 °C threshold, and applicable to all countries. The hope is that heads of state, other elected officials and public representatives will have the courage to see beyond their term in office and “risk” showing bold political initiative. After the disappointment in 2009 at COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark when no agreement was reached to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, COP21 is destined to be a pivotal moment – for better or for worse remains to be seen, but the general sentiment is that the last train for the 2 °C target is leaving the station. It is worth bearing in mind that this is the 21st COP since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came into force in 1994. The main objective of COP is to review the implementation of the UNFCCC. The UNFCCC itself was adopted at the 1992 Rio- Convention, the first international political response to climate change, and set out a framework for action aimed at stabilising atmospheric concentrations of GHGs to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. Bioenergy could and should play a bigger role than it already does. However, the use of biomass for energy is often hampered by half-truths, myths, lies and damned lies wielded by a mighty sword called statistics. With this in mind the European Biomass Association (AEBIOM) recently published its annual Statistical Report, arguably one of its most important publications to date as it does some serious “myth-busting”, bringing much needed contextual order. Contrary to what others will have you believe almost three-quarters of the EU’s 105.1 million tonnes oil equivalent (Mtoe) biomass consumption in 2013 was for heat and biomass imports represented less than four percent of the EU’s bioenergy gross inland consumption.This suggests that to a very large degree biomass is produced and used locally regionally, which ought to be good news for self-proclaimed desk-top defenders Southeast bottomland hardwoods, and Indonesian and Brazilian rainforests.Sarcasm aside it is not about winning a factual argument, its about changing misguided thinking as forest-owner Chuck Leavell explains passionately in BioOpinion. Whilst the atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide is unquestionably the unwanted consequence of various human activities that use fossil and geological carbon sources from the Earth’s crust, CO₂ in itself is also a resource. This was the focus of a recent conference looking at what must be the world’s most frowned-upon gas, converting it into useful products such as synthetic fuels, polymers, pharmaceuticals and other platform chemicals using carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technologies. After is about recycling existing CO₂ converting it into a useful liquid or gaseous product, which ultimately will be converted back to CO₂ when used or recovered energy. Ultimately it seems that CCU technologies may hold a potential key to petrofree renewable and sustainable chemical and energy integration. On paper,photosynthesis would appear to be the “Holy Grail” for cheap hydrogen (production and direct CO₂ conversion into synthetic fuels using solar energy. If nothing else it sparks the imagination with “highly efficient, non-biological, molecular level energy conversion ‘machines’ that generate fuels directly from water and carbon dioxide” as Dr Nathan Lewis at the US Department of Energy’s Energy Innovation Hub, Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, put it. It should be stressed that a CCU technology in itself is not an excuse for exacting more fossil-derived carbon from the ground and billowing it out as Dr Markus Freidl noted CCU is case dependent, only making sense if the energy used is renewable and the CO₂ used is biogenic or “unavoidable.” An integrated biogas and biomethane upgrading plant comes to mind as a suitable CCU application. Perhaps a sludge sewage energy recovery plant like Tuen Mun in Hong Kong would be a suitable candidate or as Freidl suggested, a cement plant, assuming that society continues to view concrete as a necessity. The emissions from the process, not the heat source, are unavoidable. Maybe that will be a next step for our feature story on Kirschdorfer Zementverk in Austria. Alan Sherrard
Bioenergy no 6 October 2015
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